Portfolio - Truman State University

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PORTFOLIO MAIN PAGE

For questions or comments, please e-mail the portfolio office at portfolio@truman.edu, contact Dr. Scott Alberts, the Director of the Portfolio Project, or call him at 660-785-7649.

The Liberal Arts Portfolio is a chance for you to show off your best work while at Truman, and a chance for you to reflect on your time here. It consists of a set of explanations, reflections, and artifacts (papers, assignments, projects, artwork, recordings, video recordings, and other concrete records) that students are asked to complete during their time at Truman. The compilation and reflection of the portfolio is done as part of the senior capstone experience administered by each major program – most students complete the portfolio as part of their senior seminar or capstone experience.

The Portfolio Project is an evolving system, so students are asked to save all of their work done at the College Level. General information is given on this page, but specific pages can be found below.

Students graduating in or before May 2011
Students between these two categories
Students graduating after May 2011

To ensure smooth graduation, you want to have your portfolio completed on time.
        Spring Graduation      - Second Friday in April
        Summer Graduation    - Friday after the July 4^th holiday
        Fall Graduation           - Second Friday in November

Portfolios received late are handled in the order in which they are received. If you are having a problem that may require a late submission, please e-mail the portfolio office at portfolio@truman.edu so that we can help you handle the difficulties.

Completion of the Portfolio is a graduation requirement. Failure to complete the portfolio will result in a transcript and verification hold. Truman will be unable to send out a formal transcript and will not be able to verify your graduation with employers or graduate schools.

What do I need to do for the senior portfolio project?
In short, you need to submit 6 or 7 documents, explaining your best work asked for by each prompt. Along with the sheet, you are asked to submit an electronic artifact, which may be a copy of a paper, media file, or a description of what you had done. Although some prompts (like interdisciplinary) tend to always include papers, others (like most satisfying experience are often not a paper at all. You are also asked to submit a reflective cover letter, where you talk about your experience completing the portfolio as well as your overall experience at Truman.

You should begin by reviewing your collection of materials saved throughout your time at Truman. Then, read the prompts describing exactly what we are asking for. After reading the prompts, you should pick your best work in each area. For each item you submit, we request that you tell us about when, where, and why it was part of your learning and why you decided that it represented you. Please take the time to read each prompt and to respond thoughtfully to the questions on each prompt.

When you complete the prompt for each submission, think about your audience: faculty readers from all ranks and from diverse disciplines. Be generous with specific explanations, descriptions or assessments of your work. What is obvious to you when you created the ideas and products is not always as obvious to faculty outside your discipline. The repeated requests for information on prompts make the reading sessions work smoothly and efficiently as the readers take up one category at a time.

Why do we make you do this?
As you prepare to leave Truman State University, we ask you to leave behind a portfolio that gives us some “snapshots” of your learning and growth. We ask you to reflect on your experiences here and to share that reflection with us through the process of selecting and organizing items for a Liberal Arts and Sciences portfolio. The portfolio cover letters written by seniors have told us that the process of self-assessment and reflection was beneficial because it provided them with feelings of integration and closure. Furthermore, the portfolio you submit benefits the University in many ways.

Portfolio assessment provides a “thicker” description of the learning experiences of students and rounds out the data we acquire through standardized exams. When they review portfolios, faculty can assess the nature and quality of the liberal arts and sciences experiences of graduating seniors. Faculty members from across the disciplines gather in May and June to read items in every portfolio. Our goal is not to make judgments about individual students but to learn more about patterns of student learning experiences, growth, and achievement and to learn how seniors assess their time at Truman.

The quantitative and qualitative data we accumulate while reading student work provide information about the liberal arts and sciences curriculum, environment, and culture at Truman. Such data influence the continued evolution of the Liberal Studies Program. Individual faculty members who participate in portfolio readings report that they use the information to reflect on and refine their syllabi, courses, classroom practices, and advising. Faculty in several disciplines have worked together to add, revise or fine-tune core and major courses in light of the portfolio findings. The information has been used by groups of students, faculty, staff, and administrators to monitor the effectiveness of Truman and to set goals for continuous quality improvement.

If you would like to see more on the evaluation of portfolios, including the descriptors for the various categories, please examine the Assessment Almanac (follow any of the links labeled “Portfolio Results”). You will find a description of the process we use, along with results and excerpts from student cover letters.

We keep portfolios ten years to conduct “longitudinal” research about the University and its effectiveness. We use the aggregate data for improvement, but occasionally contact a graduate for permission to quote from the cover letter or a cover sheet for our reports about the assessment project. Be sure to complete and return the “Permission for use” document.